This invention relates generally to a projectile return apparatus and, more particularly, to a basketball return apparatus that incorporates electronic means for calculating and displaying time, shooting attempts, shots made, and shooting percentages.
Projectile return apparatuses are well known in the prior art, exemplary of which are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,427,026, 3,752,475, and 3,836,144. Such apparatuses have proven to be effective tools in the development of athletic skills required in passing, catching, and shooting routines in the game of basketball, for example. Attempts to drill an athlete in a particular workout routine as to the number of completed routines compared to the number of attempted routines over a fixed period of time have often resulted in data for analysis that may be more subjective than objective. When using the projectile return apparatuses of the prior art, it is difficult for the participant to keep track of both the number of attempted shots made and missed with a high degree of accuracy without distracting the participant from the mental and physical process of executing the proper technique involved with a specific drill. The use of another person acting as an observer of these drills may also result in disputed data. The lack of a combined body of standardized data has prevented the establishment of shooting percentage norms in basketball equivalent to hitting averages in baseball and par values in golf, for example.
The present invention provides the athlete and coaching staff greater opportunity to evaluate and develop the athlete's skills by providing a more objective method for measuring standard skills as to time and accuracy of data collection. The collection of this data from numerous standard drills is maintained while preserving the game-like nature of a drill by eliminating non-game-like apparatus such as tethers, rails, netting, floor pad sensors, etc. The present invention allows a body of comparable data to be collected and recorded on an individual athlete over a long time period, facilitating the establishment of norms for many athletes, that are comparable by age, sex, and skill level.
The electronic ball return apparatus of the present invention includes one or more projectile return apparatuses, a basketball goal assembly, a timer/counter, and one or more remote transmitters. The timer/counter functions to sense, process, store, and display the number of balls thrown at and returned from the one or more projectile return apparatuses and/or the number of successful shots to the basketball goal assembly. The remote transmitter provides an encoded signal to the timer/counter from either the one or more projectile return apparatuses or the basketball goal assembly.
The components of the present invention set forth in the preceding paragraph serve to detect and measure such athletic intagibles as strength, accuracy, endurance, desire, etc. that separate highly skilled basketball players from those of lesser skill.